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Apple Said to Be Removing Iranian iOS Apps From the App Store

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Apple has allegedly begun removing iOS apps originating in Iran from the App Store, according to reports over the weekend. Tech news site Techrasa posted a story claiming that the biggest e-commerce service, Digikala, had its app removed from the store a few days ago (Via TechCrunch).

The removal appears to relate to international trade laws. No official App Store exists for Iran, so Iranian startups and developers often register their apps as being outside the country to get onto the store.

Apple has been allowing the Iranian apps onto the App Store since September 2016. Digikala runs the Shaparak payment system which is totally isolated from international systems, so in theory it would not contravene Apple's terms and conditions. Several Iranian banks also offer iOS apps that are side-loaded onto phones, notes TechCrunch.

The Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations issued by the U.S. Department of the Treasury puts blocks on the Iranian market, which is home to 82 million people, 40 million of which use smartphones. According to Techrasa, Apple has sent the following to Iranian startups attempting to upload apps:
"Unfortunately, there is no App Store available for the territory of Iran. Additionally, apps facilitating transactions for businesses or entities based in Iran may not comply with the Iranian Transactions Sanctions Regulations (31CFR Part 560) when hosted on the App Store. For these reasons, we are unable to accept your application at this time. We encourage you to resubmit your application once international trade laws are revised to allow this functionality."
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It's still not clear exactly what part of the regulations the apps have contravened. We'll update this story if further details emerge in due course.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Apple Said to Be Removing Iranian iOS Apps From the App Store
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/01/30/apple-removing-iranian-ios-apps-store/
JosephAW

JosephAW

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May 14, 2012
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Years ago in the iOS 6 days I used to log my network traffic and kept seeing a ping to a middle eastern domain. It took me a while until I figured out it was a clock app on my iPhone. After deleting the app it stopped. Never did figure out what it was doing nor heard feedback from the American developer.
After that incident I block almost all two letter domains.
 
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spyguy10709

spyguy10709

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mkeeley said:
You mean the democratically elected president. Awful when it doesn't go your way isn't it?
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The president of the *Republic*. Not to go all political on you, if the president was elected democratically we'd have a winner who had a plurality of votes. But we live in a nonsensical republic where rural votes mean more than urban votes so we get Captain Cheeto
 
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B

Baumi

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mkeeley said:
You mean the democratically elected president. Awful when it doesn't go your way isn't it?
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While I do agree that name-calling sounds rather childish and accomplishes nothing, the nice thing about a democracy is that everyone is free to publicly dislike and disagree with their elected leaders – something that has been aptly demonstrated by right-wing pundits for the past eight years. Also, if you think of, e.g. Richard Nixon, the mere fact that someone was democratically elected does not guarantee that all of their decisions and actions will be legal and in line with the constitution.

Personally, I think it's far too early to put any definitive labels on Trump, but if we're speaking more generally, it'd be a mistake to believe a political leader couldn't possibly act in an authoritarian manner or become a danger to democracy simply because they were democratically elected. There's ample precedent in world history for exactly that kind of behaviour, so "he's democratically elected" should never mean (and has never meant in the US) "he should be above criticism" or "you should just shut up and live with him". Opposition and disagreement are just as necessary for a democracy as a willingness to compromise.
 
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Glockworkorange

Glockworkorange

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Feb 10, 2015
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I don't think anyone has a problem with criticism or questioning, but the Hitler references and the hysteria have been so over the top on this issue (and many others).

Calm, sober, reasoned and educated discussion would be more productive. None of these policies are going to meaningfully affect Apple and Cook is virtue signaling to Apple employees and the rest of the Valley.
 
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macduke

macduke

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Jun 27, 2007
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MacRumors said:
It's still not clear exactly what part of the regulations the apps have contravened. We'll update this story if further details eme
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Clearly they're brown apps, so probably terrorists. Best to block entrance so we can make America safe again. If they were orange apps it would be fine.
 
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